Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/23

 contemporaneous with that of the Blue River valley. But Eagle, in 1860, had 20 foreign born families to 108 American, and of the 20 only 13 were German.

Inasmuch as the people on the two banks of the river had a common market—Muscoda, which was a station on the railroad—and the lands of Eagle were more fertile and quite as well watered, the question why the Germans avoided that town and made homes south of the river is surely interesting, and possibly significant.

There were two important differences between the two districts. In Blue River the valley land, to use the surveyor's phrase, was "thinly timbered with oak," while in the valley of Mill Creek, or Eagle Creek, opposite was a dense forest dominated by the sugar maple but containing big timber of several varieties, and dense undergrowth. In a word, it was a heavily timbered area. Now the Germans near Lake Michigan had given ample proof of gallantry in attacking forest covered farms, yet when the choice was before them of taking such land in Richland County or easily cleared land of poorer quality in Grant, almost with one accord they selected the latter.

We cannot be certain that the difference in the timbered character of the land was the sole motive determining the choice, though doubtless it was the most important. The railroad ran on the south side of the river and the principal trading center was on that side. Settlers in Blue River valley could therefore reach the market by a direct, unbroken haul with teams over public roads. Those in Eagle at first were obliged to use the ferry in crossing the river, and later they had to cross on a toll bridge except in midwinter, if the river was frozen to a safe depth, when they crossed on the ice. These transportation conditions might have deterred some Germans from settling north of the river, even if the lands there had been as lightly timbered as those on the south side. Taken together, the two causes